It was a hot Saturday afternoon when I arrived in Villanueva de la Cañada. I was travelling to visit the place where George Brown, Brigadista from my home village of Inistioge, County Kilkenny, had died during the Spanish Civil War.

A regular refrain from apologists for the activities of the Catholic Church in Ireland is that people were largely unaware of its gross abuse of marginalised members of the working class or at least unsure of the illegality of its behaviour.